VENICE – Venice City Council members agreed Friday to compromise with the citizens group Venice Unites on three of four areas of concern raised over new city development regulations – including two key ones regulating building heights in downtown.
In July the City Council approved the city’s first major rewrite of its land development regulations since the 1970s. The following month, a five-member group of residents opposed to several aspects of the code formed Venice Unites, moving to collect at least 2,228 signatures from registered voters on a petition designed to force a referendum on whether to rescind the entire 600-plus pages of new development rules.
Friday’s action was designed to avert a legal battle over those rules.
“This whole thing started with an adjustment in the way you measure heights downtown and we got that victory,” attorney Ron Smith said in a phone interview after the two-and-a-half-hour meeting.
Related:Venice to hold special meeting aimed at compromise on controversial development rules
The citizens’ group’s original list of six items for which they demanded change was whittled down to four, highlighted by those building height issues.
To ease concerns about heights in the downtown Venice core, city officials will draft language to change the recently adopted rule that shifting the point at which the 35-foot height limit is measured from the midline of a roof to the top of the roof.
The change to a midline measurement had been put in place to allow for construction of a three-story building with a peaked roof, though a 10-foot height exception from the old code was deleted.
The proposed compromise – reached through a mediation process that involved city staff and Smith, representing Venice Unites – will restore the measuring point to the peak of the roof and bring back the 10-foot special exception, and cap the height of features such as chimneys and elevator shafts to 20% of the building height.
The change preserves the right of property owners’ to seek a third story by special exception.
The other major height change involves buildings in the downtown edge district. The city staff recommendation splits the northern edge district from the southern district.
In the northern distrct – which includes high and mid-rise condominiums along the Intracoastal Waterway – a height exception of 75 feet will be allowed.
Earlier:Venice considers whether to allow taller buildings downtown
The old Hotel Venice building at 200 N. Nassau Street, which is now the home to the Venice Center for Independent and Assisted Living, will carry with it an allowance for 35 feet of height by right and 55 feet with an exception approved by the city.
That 75 foot exception would be scrapped for the southern portion of the downtown edge district, which includes portions of the city south of Venice Avenue along Milan Avenue, Ponce de Leon Avenue, Pensacola Road and Nassau Street.
Venice Unites wanted that area treated differently, in part to remove an incentive to replace several existing two-story 1927-era homes with a larger structure.
The third change area involved creation of a resource management plan and wildlife protection assessment on some parcels smaller than five acres targeted for development, in part to protect gopher tortoises.
All of the changes will be formally drafted by city staff and then be subject to public hearings before the Planning Commission before being brought back to the City Council for final approval.
Last remaining concern
The lone remaining issue involves planned unit developments and grew out of the efforts by residents in Northeast Venice to fight the construction of a shopping center anchored by a supermarket at the southwest corner of Laurel Road and Jacaranda Boulevard.
Earlier:Residents start petition to oppose shopping center, Publix proposal for Venice area
Before the code was adopted last summer, there was no limit to the size of an individual commercial structure. The new code placed a limit of 65,000 square feet – too small for a big box store, but more than adequate for a supermarket.
Venice Unites sought to cap that at 20,000 square feet and add a provision that a developer must seek approval from the other property owners in a planned unit development to change the allowed land use.
Attorneys for developers objected to the size restrictions and the idea of having residents approve changes in a planned unit development, citing problems in deciding who could vote and the rules to manage the voting process, suggesting that would fall on the city, since associations would want to limit legal exposure for potential lawsuits.
The council postponed the issue and will discuss it at a yet-to-be-scheduled meeting, while the other three changes progress through the planning process.
A ‘friendly submission’
Venice Unites has amassed enough signatures on its petition to place a referendum on the 2023 ballot on whether to recall the land development regulations.
But since acceptance of that petition would put those regulations on hold, City Attorney Kelly Fernandez has advised City Clerk Kelly Michaels not to accept it because that would place the city in violation of state law.
Smith told the council that he will likely submit the petitions in early February with the understanding that Michaels will reject them.
He stressed that submission is not mean to disrupt recent progress but to preserve the right for Venice Unites to ask circuit court to force the council to accept them.
“All we would try and do is protect their rights,” Smith told the board. “We’re not intending any unfriendly court action.
Smith later said he was optimistic that would not wind up in the courts.
“I now think we’re going to resolve it all on a friendly basis,” he added.
Read More:Venice citizens group succeeds in getting changes to city land rules
2023-01-10 12:45:07
